root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 511

Revision 502, 6.0 kB (checked in by jerome, 16 years ago)

Improved documentation wrt the newly added dependency on ImageMagick?
for the computation of ink usage in image file formats.

  • Property svn:keyword set to Auth Date Id Rev
  • Property svn:keywords set to Auth Date Id Rev
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1# $Id$
2
3pkpgcounter : a generic Page Description Language parser
4
5(c) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
6This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
7it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
8the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
9(at your option) any later version.
10
11This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
14GNU General Public License for more details.
15
16You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
18
19=============================================================================
20
21pkpgcounter is a generic Page Description Language parser which can either
22compute the number of pages in a document, or compute the percent of
23ink coverage needed to print each page, in different colorspaces.
24
25pkpgcounter currently recognizes the following document formats :
26
27        - PostScript (both DSC compliant and binary)
28       
29        - PDF
30       
31        - PCL3/4/5
32       
33        - PCLXL (aka PCL6)
34       
35        - DVI
36       
37        - Plain text
38       
39        - TIFF
40       
41        - Several other image formats
42       
43        - ESC/P2
44       
45        - OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300)
46       
47        - Zenographics ZjStream
48       
49        - Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2)
50       
51        - Samsung SPL1
52       
53        - ESC/PageS03
54       
55        - Brother HBP
56       
57        - Hewlett-Packard Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language
58       
59The eight latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
60only supported in page counting mode.
61
62By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
63a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
64files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
65
66With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
67pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
68to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
69representing the files to parse.
70
71See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
72
73=============================================================================
74
75Installation :
76--------------
77
78  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
79 
80        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
81       
82      and extract it : 
83     
84        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
85       
86        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
87       
88  1 - Run the installation script :
89     
90        $ python setup.py install
91       
92      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
93      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
94       
95  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
96 
97      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
98     
99      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
100      passed on the command line.
101     
102      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
103 
104      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
105      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
106     
107  3 - That's all !   
108 
109 
110IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
111software which must be installed. These third party software are :
112
113        - GhostScript (this one is needed for all file formats).
114       
115        - The Python Imaging Library, aka PIL (this one is needed for all
116          file formats).
117       
118        - GhostPCL (this one is needed for the PCL3/4/5 and PCLXL formats)
119         
120        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
121          (this one is needed for the DVI file format).
122         
123        - ImageMagick (this one is needed for image file formats) 
124       
125=============================================================================
126
127Troubleshooting :
128-----------------
129
130  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
131  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
132  driver was used.
133 
134  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
135  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
136  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
137  install it if you've got another system type.
138 
139=============================================================================
140
141Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
142release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
143Manin, available from :
144
145    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
146   
147Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
148or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
149
150Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
151scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
152
153The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
154was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
155   
156pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
157was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
158pkpgcounter.
159
160=============================================================================
161
162pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
163direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
164PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
165License of the Free Software Foundation, version 2 or higher. The
166algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
167PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
168Library's facilities.
169
170=============================================================================
171
172Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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